Supersession

//suːpəˈsɛʃ(ə)n// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of superseding; the fact of having been superseded. countable, uncountable

    "Two points became perfectly clear: one was that she was thinking of something very different from her present, her past, or her future relations with Hyacinth Robinson; the other was that he was superseded indeed. This was so completely the case that it did not even occur to her, it was evident, that the sense of supersession might be cruel to the young man."

  2. 2
    act of replacing one person or thing by another especially one held to be superior wordnet

Example

More examples

"Two points became perfectly clear: one was that she was thinking of something very different from her present, her past, or her future relations with Hyacinth Robinson; the other was that he was superseded indeed. This was so completely the case that it did not even occur to her, it was evident, that the sense of supersession might be cruel to the young man."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin supersessiō, supersessiōnem, from supersedeō (“supersede”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.